11 January 2013 – Walcha to Port Macquarie (via the Oxley Highway)

11 January 2013 – Walcha to Port Macquarie (via the Oxley Highway)

We started to make tracks today towards Port Macquarie, even though we don’t have to be there until Saturday.  Along the Oxley Highway drove Josh, towing our not so light caravan and I think he was cursing the road for majority of the way.  This stretch of road has bends galore and is extremely steep and  quite narrow.  Josh had to sit on the breaks for most of the way (wait for the return trip to Tamworth when we have to climb back up the mountain ranges).  We stopped at a little place called Gingers Creek Café about half way through the trip and Sami was enjoying the fresh air after all those bends!  Zoe ordered a steak pie at our stop and decided she didn’t want to eat it “because it had meat in it”…. I don’t know what she thinks normally goes into her pie.  We fed the little skinks our leftovers and then continued on the journey down the mountains the rest of the way.  Only about 15 minutes on there was a gurgling noise from the back of the car.  I turned around to find Sami hunched over and vomiting… and it just kept coming.  There was nowhere immediate for us to pull over on the downward wind of the hill and there was nothing in the back of the car for us to catch the vomit with.  Zoe was looking a bit green around the gills by now but eventually Josh veered to the opposition side of the road where he’d found a very small shoulder of road.  We all jumped out of the car and Josh went into action.  I ran for bottles of water and towels but Josh went for the outside tap that was an extra on our van (up there for good ideas Josh).  He grabbed a bucket and sponge and started sweeping out the vomit from the car seat and floor.  All I had to do was clean up Sami and try to comfort Zoe to avoid her sympathy spewing (nice huh?).  We all finally boarded back into the car with the windows down and the air conditioner pumping trying to ignore the smell that surrounded us.  We finally reached the end of the winding road and further on, found our way into Port Macquarie.  After stopping for a very late lunch on the beach and playing a bit of soccer out in the sun, we needed to find somewhere to stay the night as we are a day early to get into our caravan site.  Fortunately, we’ve found a little park at a boat ramp and set up camp.  We did a spot of fishing before grabbing the swimmers and hitting the water (again).  Josh and Sami cooked up some lovely pork schnitzels for dinner (also from Walcha) and Zoe washed up the mess.  We are trying to get these kids house-trained….  While there was still light we had a bit more of kick around the park with the ball and then headed to the park table for a game of Uno, which by the end I couldn’t tell the difference between the blue and green cards it had gotten so dark.  The kids have finally hit the sack for the night (early night for them at 9.45pm) and Josh is outside chatting to a group who have come here to do some prawning.  Apparently last week they caught 9kgs of prawns.  Perhaps if Josh sweet-talks them enough we may end up with a catch ourselves?